I don't really get people who automatically discount science fiction. Yeah, I wasn't always a fan. But even in my tenderest youth, I have never scanned a film poster for the slightest hint of tentacle or laser or teleportation and gone, "How dare you?! You, sir, are trying to make me watch a - gasp - science fiction film." Even when it didn't interest me as a genre, I never treated the entire collective as though if I touched it, the Facehugger of Deadly Nerddom would jump out and facerape me into a John Hurt-style coma where eventually an ugly geek child version of myself would burst its way out of the chest cavity of what used to be a nice, normal girl before she got mixed up in all that - gasp - science fiction. I mention this because a) I have actually encountered this attitude in people in real life and b) Ridley Scott has created a film that is extraordinarily beautiful, both visually and otherwise, and you should go and see it, like, right now.
The most common criticism of sci-fi seems to be that it's too unrealistic to relate to and, indeed, there are two ways you can go with this. You can acknowledge you're in a science fiction movie and just have fun with whooshing doors and phasers and unintentional dystopias where everyone dresses the same and nobody comments on this sinister conformity. Or you can look at the potential within science fiction to transcend that genre, and build something that no other genre gives you the sheer freedom to imagine. Come to think of it, that's why people who 'can't relate' to sci-fi confuse me. Empathy. Imagination. Your special gifts as a member of the human race. Use them.
Because ultimately science fiction is all about environment. It's saying, "Yeah, this is set in a world like ours but not ours, and the go-to explanation for weird shit is science. (If the explanation is 'a wizard did it', you're looking at fantasy.*)" It's world-building. And what Scott does best, of course, is world-building. Blade Runner isn't really a significant cinematic achievement for its plot or characters (Harrison Ford eats Chinese food a lot, looks cool, bangs robots) so much as its vision of our dystopian, corporate-run yet grimly beautiful future. The world-building in Prometheus is off the charts. We are taken from one stunning environment to the next, from bleak, haunting vistas on the Isle of Skye (Scottish Tourist Board, Ridley will accept with cash or cheque) to the clean, threatening lines of the Prometheus ship itself - the design of which is reflected in everything from the dark blue minimalist space suits to the silver-plated champagne bottles to Michael Fassbender's new Aryan hairdo - to the depths of an otherworldly colony, the twisting black gooey textures of which will recall some familiar creatures to those who have seen the previous Alien films and seriously unsettle those who haven't. It is a miracle of design from beginning to end, though for me the standout moment (without giving anything away) concerns Fassbender's lonely robot David standing inside a holographic projection of all the terrifying, awe-inspiring majesty of space. It's a beautiful moment of seamless design, effects and acting combining to make me go a little bit wibbly.
And speaking of awe-inspiring majesty, all the awe and majesty and awesome and majestic bobbins on show here are no accident. Voltaire said (and if your inner Adolescent Philosophy Student Alert Alarm is going off right now, I don't blame you) that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Neil Gaiman wrote an entire novel based on the concept that faith is a creative energy, constructing gods out of things that we put our belief in. Prometheus runs along the same lines, juggling hefty questions about our origins and what it means for God and faith if we start finding answers: discount religion entirely or keeping believing nonetheless? The questions it raises are thoughtful but also lead to one of the few minor criticisms I had of this film, that all this faith-religion-science stuff is just a bit too nebulous to amount to anything tangible.
Fortunately, the cast is universally strong so you can just focus on the human drama if you like. Noomi Rapace is excellent as Dr Elizabeth Shaw, all bright-eyed curiosity and calm capability and, crucially, possesses at least a modicum of common sense that makes her intensely rootable-for. Logan Marshall-Green as Boyfriend Doctor Charlie Holloway is less likeable as the film's purveyor of Dickish Hubris but puts in a good performance. Idris Elba is the film's Cool Black Dude (there's one in every Alien film, go check) but he is the Coolest of the Cool Black Dudes. The more I think about Charlize Theron, the most I liked not only her performance but her character Meredith Vickers, the icy bitch-queen of Weyland Corporation. Guy Pearce is slightly odd casting as the ancient Peter Weyland, founder of said corporation, and one of the rare decisions that doesn't hold up (what have you got against actors who actually, like, old, Ridley? Enquiring minds want to know). The standout performance is Michael Fassbender as aforementioned lonely robot David, who just wants to be a real boy. Sort of. I'm not sure if Fassbender's characters always start out as the most interesting ones or whether he just makes them that way by dint of sheer acting. Seriously, that guy must be exhausted from all the bloody acting he does. Actually seriously though, it's a fascinatingly detailed performance and I'm unsurprised that my cursory google turned up an interview where he stated avoiding watching the androids of previous Alien films and taking the Blade Runner replicants as his reference point, because that's exactly where my brain went. He combines the Rutger Hauer arrogance with the Daryl Hannah childlike naivety and is thoroughly compelling throughout ("thoroughly compelling" - that's a thing that people say in reviews, right?). It also doesn't give anything away to say that of the two blockbusters I have reviewed this summer, both contribute to the trend in sympathetic be-cheekboned villains with really shit sort-of dads.
Prometheus has received mixed reviews from the press, largely because "it's not like Alien". I can't help but think much of these are missing the point. No, it's not Alien. It's a totally different genre to Alien. I'm not sure what genre it is, except maybe pseudo-philosophical-aren't-we-profound-here-are-some-pretty-things-to-look-at-so-you-might-not-notice-we-don't-know-what-the-fuck's-going-on (also included: Danny Boyle's Sunshine). If I sound like I'm making mock, well, only a little. Prometheus aims for something huge and succeeds on many many levels, enough to make a stunningly well-made film and, for a film where a lot of violent shit goes down, a strangely uplifting paean to human endeavour and courage.
Gosh, I've gone all serious. Batman. There, that's better. Though if I use Batman to drag things back from the brink of attempted profundity, my review for The Dark Knight Rises is going to be a very confused affair.
*Sorry for stealing your joke, Simpsons. Your penetrating understanding of nerd culture is too much for me.
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